Job Searches

There's a sizzle in the air. If you pay attention to the news, you know the economy has made a turn for the better. We're not at full employment by any means but there are jobs to be had.

If I were looking for a corporate job, I'd be going one by one through a list to top employers in my area.

Leadership and Management

Someone asked me what kind of leader-- tactical, strategic, a few other options I don't recall-- I thought I might be. I'm a little ashamed to say I tanked the question.

I am adept at ignoring the premise(s) of a question. But in this case I really wanted to answer the question because I'm struggling to build a relationship after an involuntary re-org. That requires being genuine. I'm trying here.

I think I stumbled because the question made no sense from my point of view.

First off, I am a leader now. I don't need authority to lead. The question sort of conflated leadership and management which are two different but related things.

Second, I can't imagine being just one kind of leader. A team is made up of a leaders and team-mates and the relationships between them different people have different needs and motivations. Every relationship is different so managing that person is different and specific to that relationship. There is also an unrelated diplomatic function a leader must carry out when interfacing with outsiders as well as a somewhat related role of being the face of the team up the direct chain of command.

If I had the chance to answer the question again I'd say, "I think a good leader has to have and utilize all the tools you listed and more. The trick is to know which to use when. Even when making a tactical decision one must keep strategic implications in mind and vice-versa."

Name Dropping is Cheating

This Name Dropping is Cheating article strongly resonated with me.

"<insert big wig name here> wants this." is something everyone in a large hierarchical organization has heard. And you know what? It really is a lazy short cut. The command and control management style that seems to go hand in hand with this method of getting things done doesn't really doesn't allow for collaboration or improvement on an idea. This method also seems to be frequently utilized by those who take credit for getting stuff done but somehow forget to share that credit with those who actually did the work.

Look, there will always be exceptions because emergencies happen and that's OK. In that case tell me what got screwed up and how my getting task X done ASAP will bail us all out. I will do my best to make that happen.

But if you want my best in the normal course of work, I need to know the goals of the mission as well as the task requested. If you project command and control power at me to get a task done I will get that task done. However, if you work with me on developing an idea or goal I promise the final result will be superior. Even if you work with me just a little bit and put the requirement in context. Building something in a vacuum results in an inferior product or service and I resent people who prevent me from doing my best work. I like to exceed expectations.

But how to respond as an individual contributor in a way that doesn't offend but does nudge the name dropper in a more productive direction... how about something along the lines of, "That's great! We are happy to help meet <exec>'s goals if we can. Can you share the vision for this project?" I welcome other ideas.

Maybe I'm being a self important prima donna here but I don't think so. I think most managers and executives would want an idea understood, examined and improved at every step of the process.

Besides, do you think the big wigs want people running around using their names? It reminds me of this line from Charlie Wilson's War, "...I'd appreciate it if you didn't throw my name around quite so much, because from time to time I use it myself and I need it in good condition."

Full of Crap

Headline reads, "Dick Cheney blasts interrogation report, says it's 'full of crap'". I can't help but feel there's a good joke in there-- something along the lines of "takes one to know one"... I just can't seem to pull it together.

Happiness and Health

My takeaway? Happiness through service to others makes you healthier. Gene expression is different in a way that literally makes for improved health if the source of happiness is a deep sense of purpose and well being. The presser identifies inflammation and the immune system specifically.

It seems to me this is something many folks instinctively believe but I think the world would be a better place if more consciously understood. Want to be healthier? Do something nice or needed for someone else. Even if it doesn't work, what's the down side?

It caught my eye that "The research was supported by National Institutes of Health grants R01NR012899, R01CA116778 and P30AG107265." So, thank you USA tax payers for funding this research in Psychoneuroimmunology.

Also thanks to LinkedIn influencer Deepak Chopra for passing this along. But dude, how fulfilling would it be if you include a link to the original press release from which you or, more likely, your staff apparently cribbed?

Which and where- what?

I can never remember how to do this on windows or *nix so I'm putting it here. How do you figure out where that executable that is in your path is coming from?

In *nix:

$ which java
/usr/bin/java
$

I don't know if there is a similar animal in windows but this gets close enough:

c:\>where java
c:\windows\system32\java.exe

c:\>

Webs and Chains Of Trust

In computers, there are chains of trust where if I trust you and you trust someone else, then I too trust that someone else. This sort of thing is built in to in to PGP and GPG encryption tools used to verify identity. But this sort of model is also baked in all over the place. For example, if you are on facebook, you probably understand that when you friend someone they can see what you post. What many folks don't realize is that not only your friends can see it but usually their friends can as well. Last time I looked you can set things to "friends only", the default "Friends and Friends of Friends", and some just share everything with everyone. There may be a "friends of friends and their friends"-- I don't remember anymore.

I expect most folks just end up with the default where every time they friend someone they are giving access to not only that person but all of that persons friends. I also suspect that most folks have no idea every time they accept a friend request they are allowing hundreds of other people access. To each their own but if this is news to you, I recommend reviewing your settings. I'll bet most folks would be shocked to see who has access to their profile. (The dad who shot the girls laptop after he read what she wrote by logging in as the family dog comes to mind for some reason.)

I have always found the in-line parenthetical citations used in academic papers highly disruptive to focus, comprehension, and retention. While pondering how annoying I find them because I'm writing a paper that requires them, it occurred to me that these references are the same sort of web of trust. Not only do citations provide credit but they also convey authority. Which, like facebook, made me wonder how much auditing happens. The NY Times wrote an article about the proliferation of fake conferences and journals. It seems to be a problem. "All Fake Journals" is a list someone using the name Joanna Carpenter put together, and here's another list called "Scholarly Open Access" by Jeffrey Beall that looks more reputable on first impression-- but who are these people and why should I trust their lists of what is bogus? One can easily imagine someone also creating a bogus list to knock down the authority of opposing beliefs and points of view. Creationism vs evolution. Is out-of-the-ground carbon driving global climate change? How many others?

I don't know the pillars of the academic community so one last name in a citation is as good to me as another. Besides professors, who knows which journals are reputable in which academic circles? I guess the only way to know is to ask someone you trust to know and share which resources are trustworthy and to keep in mind from there each link in the chain or strand in the web moves you one place further from reliability.

On the flip side, every time I cite something, I'm implicitly saying that I trust this authority and what they say. I worry that I may be granting some small amount of credibility back through the chain of trust to someone who, if I actually knew anything about them, wouldn't be deserving. For now, I guess I have to use what I find for this assignment-- I have no choice, do I?

News Flash: Solid State Drives Rock, Dan the Last to Experience

I'm honestly not sure how old my laptop is off hand but it's at least five years. It's a System76 Serval Pro 5 that I originally ordered with 8 gig of RAM, Two Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU P9700 @ 2.80GHz processors, an NVidea GeForce GTX with 1G of RAM, and a 7200rpm 500G hard drive. It was a higher end workstation replacement class machine back then and cost a few thousand dollars. It has been a great machine but the old hard drive was finally giving up the ghost. The occasional random file would go corrupt and the various disk utilities couldn't fix the bad sectors.

I finally made the jump to a Solid State Drive and highly recommend it. Without the moving parts of an old fashioned platter and spindle it's blazing fast. While I had it open I removed the years of built up gunk from cooling system that was apparently making the poor cooling fan run non-stop. Between the cleaning and the new hard drive this machine is now nearly silent. What a difference! Here's hoping this investment will make extend usefulness another five years.

I know that I'm coming late to the SSD game... I was always interested but, between price and a lack of need, I just never bothered. So far, it's absolutely worth every penny.

Double Standard?

Many have already heard that Mayor Schmitt has formally invited Pope Francis to Green Bay.

I wonder if the FFRC would object so strenuously to an invitation to an atheist leader or even the Dalai Lama?

My view? Bring on the Pope! The Catholic church is heavily woven in to the fabric of this community and many-- probably the majority?-- in our community would love to see it happen. While no organization or individual is perfect, I believe Catholics do way, way more good than harm. I also believe that will become more true given the less individually judgemental and more organizationally critical approaches that Pope Francis seems to be taking.

Besides, the economic infusion for our area from a papal visit would probably be at least that of an NFC Championship game and that is a good thing for everyone. If the pope came on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, so would others and that would result in a never ending bump in tourism spending.

This whole papal visit thing is a long shot but what does it hurt to ask? I don't know if Mayor Schmitt thought this up or not but kudos to the person who did and to the mayor for giving it a shot.